


The Bone Cave

by MemoryCrow



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Dark Past, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Escapism, Friendship/Love, Gallows Humor, Humor, Identity Issues, Kindred Spirits, Loss of Identity, M/M, Mental Instability, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 10:30:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13292940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemoryCrow/pseuds/MemoryCrow
Summary: After the (first) Curse lifts from Storybrooke, Victor struggles to find his identity and place. This is mostly a character study of Victor Frankenstein, but also looks at his relationship with Jefferson.





	The Bone Cave

Vikings called the human body a ‘bone cave’.

Victor stared at Jefferson’s sleeping body, wondering at the darkness within, the cave of bones. What dreams moved inside the cave of his skull? What spirits traversed the ladder of his ribs, the Georgia O’Keeffe flowering of his pelvis?

Dark, little devils, that’s what. Impets that licked at Jefferson’s heart and sank needle teeth into the cord of nerves traveling his vertebrae.

It had been a long night. Sometimes it was difficult to handle Jefferson, to bear with the mania. Victor traced a forefinger over the thin but unsettlingly ragged scar encircling Jefferson’s neck. It was remarkable to consider that the larger scars were on the inside, hidden away in the bone cave.

Fucking Vikings.

 

Once, he’d been a man of science. Sort of. Actually, he’d been a man caught in a sticky morass of obsession. The question was; why?

He usually answered himself, _it was to save my brother_. Well, that was crap. His brother had already died, so there was no saving him. He’d made his brother live again, after a fashion, and his brother had begged… _begged_ for death.

No, the obsession had burned bright, taking up all Victor’s vitality, long before the loss of his brother. He couldn’t answer the question of why. It seemed an overblown case of not seeing the forest for the trees… he’d gotten stuck on one detail, one spark of possibility. When he’d realized what he could _do_ , he couldn’t let go.

He was pretty sure he’d let go, now. There was something about having one’s arm ripped off at the shoulder by a monster of one’s own creation… it changed the perspective. He should have bled out and died, body shaking with the shock of pain and loss, but then there was Regina’s magic. Then there was the toting of his own arm, in a _cooler_ , to Gold’s shop. That had been fun. Making a shy curtsy to the power of magic over science.

It had hurt, actually. Not as much as the severing of the arm, but still. Victor had become expert at concealing his feelings, keeping a remote distance. Even so, Gold knew exactly the way in which he could hurt Victor. He’d requested that hurt, the admission of Victor’s need for magic, as the price to re-attach his arm.

And then, it was done. No hocus pocus, no showy smoke or explosion of glitter. His arm was simply back in place, as if never wrenched from his body. Victor was thankful, but it was galling. No bone to painfully knit back together, no hours of surgery with no real guarantee of a good outcome, no necrotized flesh to subject to weekly wound care. No major scarring.

Like Jefferson, he had a thin and irregular scar, but it was nothing like the scarring the practice of medicine would have inflicted… in the unlikely event the arm could be saved, re-attached. More likely, a stump, a prosthesis.

So then, it must be spite, Victor thought, which kept Killian Jones in the role of Captain Hook. Gold could make him whole… with a thought.

 

 

He’d let go, mostly, of the old obsession, but he was still obsessive. His thoughts got stuck and began to ferment. They became vinegary. He was off-balance, off-kilter. They all thought Jefferson was the only crazy one of the two.

Wrong.

Or, well. They _knew_. He’d been called out for drinking on the job. He was a little too casual and glib in the OR. _Toss me that scalpel, will ya_? He made IV bags of saline into fake boobs and twirled the lines like tassles. Anywhere other than Storybrooke, he’d be gone. He’d thus far avoided any serious mishandling of human life, and therefore anything as modern and costly as malpractice. But he was a Human Resources nightmare, he knew it. He called all the HR staff by name and winked in supposed conspiracy.

Before the Curse was lifted, he’d been quiet enough. He’d believed in his role as a physician. Mostly. Sometimes, when he said things like, “We’ve done all we can do. Now, it’s up to the patient. We’ll have to wait and see,” he felt like he was aping night-time drama or the odd soap opera.

It was kind of true.

Still, he’d woken up each morning and had not questioned his role. He wore business casual under his lab coat and combed his hair. He’d been reasonably conservative about a tendency to womanize, and had never once considered drinking before surgery. Even when he’d had a drink, it had been a respectable thing; a glass of wine with supper, or a cozy sipping whiskey on a cold night, reading an article in The Lancet.

The fucking Curse, which he shouldn’t even have been a part of, made him into a zombie. He’d shuffled along with the other sheep. Nothing was questioned, sense of purpose was built-in, and he just… ambled on. He fed his belly, gave relief to his dick, slept at appropriate hours and drank 64 fluid ounces of water per day.

Was he happier, then? He had to wonder. He had not seemed to be falling apart while Cursed, and it gave heavy weight to the proposal that ignorance is bliss.

… Now…. He had to laugh. _Now_.

He heard himself, sober, serious, say, “I’m afraid he’s dead, Jim.” To a wide-eyed, would-be widow. Then, “Just kidding. Geez, lighten up.”

When the Curse lifted, an unimaginable grief and anger had poured into his bone cave, filling it up. He was no more than a man-shaped vessel of loss. He’d tried to kill Regina. Then, _whoopsy_ , the arm. That was sobering, and yet he’d chosen to remain fairly inebriated, since.

Gone was business casual. He wore his scrubs as if in his PJs at work and slouched the hospital corridors in high-top, canvas sneakers. He had no idea what he’d done to his hair. He sang the Soft Cell version of ‘Tainted Love” every time he heard the beep-beep of a heart monitor _. Now I know I’ve got to (beep-beep) run away, I’ve got to (beep-beep) get away…._

Yeah, no shit.

He thought, _I mean – why bother_? Let the resident witch and wizard run things. They could probably cure cancer, for crying out loud. It was frankly negligent of them to have not addressed the disease. Just think the offending tumor away, right? The hyperactive cells that couldn’t stop producing, because productivity is everything. The ambitious cells, with their drive to populate all branches of the cave, were like corporate master-minds. They were greedy, they cared nothing for those they squashed on their way up. Let Gold give them a talking-to.

If he could lose an arm… If Jefferson could lose his _head_ … and then, _shabooh shoobah_ , all is back in place, what was left for a physician to do? IBS and throat cultures? Kids throwing up in the ER? Joy. The occasional item of interest inserted into an orifice of interest and amusingly stuck. Had he even taken a Hippocratic Oath? Where he hailed from, there had never been a Hippocrates.

Well, his position afforded easy access to drugs, pain-killers. This could be relevant.

It was true, also, magic didn’t seem to do shit for the psyche. The best it offered was the clouding of memory, an amnesiac forgetfulness. But the broken hearted were still broken hearted, the witch and wizard chief among them; very telling. The unfinished, those walking bone caves full of empty pockets from pasts yet unsettled… they remained unfinished. _He_ remained unfinished, an unhealing wound. Ambulatory, but fucked-up.

Archie could be the richest man in town. Victor considered making a switch into psychiatry, giving Archie a little competition. But, no. Post Curse… where was his belief, his bedside manner? He would only compare everyone’s issues to his own, to Jefferson’s. Voice casual and yet raised, he would advise, “Oh, stop whining. Here, have a pill. These are doozies.” He would write prescriptions for 2-3 martinis per diem, which might actually be good for business. Or, possibly, he would offer a beatific smile and advise the patient to go fuck him or herself. Probably less good for business.

 

 

Why on earth had he resurrected Regina’s long, lost boo? Because, newly awakened, he’d suddenly known that he _could_? Because he’d failed to do so, back when he first met Jefferson? Because he was an unstoppable fucktard?

Jesus, it was so obviously stupid. And, ultimately, not just a little ironic, for he’d habitually said _I’ll rip your arms off and beat you to death with them_. He didn’t _mean_ it, Christ’s sake.

He should be asleep. He could almost never sleep after one of Jefferson’s episodes. It was like Jefferson’s mania, his restless pacing, jabbering, re-living and hallucinating was all transferred into Victor. Post-transfer, Jefferson dropped into a sleep that could nearly pass for dead.

Victor paced. He looked at Jefferson’s bone cave.

The advent of Jefferson was yet more fall-out of the lifting of the Curse.

 

 

Those less inclined to respecting one’s privacy had openly asked about it, and Victor had been defensive. He’d loudly overshared, overcompensating for his insecurity on the matter. “ _We’rrrre fucking_!” he declared to a startled surgical team. His tone had been one of _Herrrrre’s Johnny_! He was pretty sure he’d filled the questioning nurse with unmitigated glee.

Big eyes under surgical caps that looked like shower caps and over surgical masks, gloved hands arrested in air. He’d turned to the poor schmo on the table, draped, intubated, nothing more than a patch of Betadine-stained skin over a hella inflamed appendix.

“I know, let’s play doctor.” Victor had suggested.

His team, if such it was, had moved on, but the subject had not. People were interested, far more interested than when he’d schmoozed lonely women into one-night stands, or into an informal, yet steady series of booty calls.

But then, that was likely standard protocol for a self-important, busy physician. His only variance was that he wasn’t a married man while he did his thing. It was all same-old, same-old; old hat. Or surgical cap.

But _Jefferson_. Now, this was something. That Victor, Dr. Whale to his team, had ‘gone gay’ for Jefferson was a thing in and of itself. Jefferson, so fucking pretty and rich, mysterious and nuts, was another. Out and about with Jefferson, getting a bite to eat or whatever, Victor felt observed. He _was_ observed. It set him on edge a bit, mostly because he hadn’t figured it out, himself. It was unexpected, a genuine surprise.

Sometimes he looked in accusation at his simpleton dick; he wondered, what gives? Why didn’t you say something?

If he’d remained un-cursed, in his own world and living out his original life, would this have surfaced? God knew he had daddy issues. Would he have shacked-up with a dude, to the consternation of his family and work associates? Would it have been more shocking and noteworthy than his tendency towards necromancy?

 

 

It turned out, there were unexpected benefits to mental illness. When anxious, Jefferson wanted to go down on him, and Jefferson was anxious a lot.

It had taken a moment for Victor to catch on. First, there was the surprise of Jefferson… existing in Storybrooke. Cursed, he hadn’t really taken Jefferson in. He had a peripheral awareness of a blur of darkness, a sort of semi-goth shadow that appeared now and again. A sad and grumpy sort who rarely spoke, maybe seen for a second in the grocery store. Although, really, it seemed like he should have a butler or something… someone who did the shopping and fed the cat while Jefferson toiled in the Bat-Cave. Victor came to associate the Byronic figure of Jefferson with a mansion on a forested hill, which made poetic, if unrealistic sense.

Because… What did this guy _do_? From whence came his filthy richness?

Post-Curse, all was changed. He’d stared openly at Jefferson in the street… _I know you_. It was a shock… the only other Storybrooke people with whom he had a previous acquaintance were Regina and Gold. His old pals, the witch and the wizard. Jefferson’s old pals, too.

The next surprise was that Jefferson had always known Victor to be Victor. He was in Storybrooke, yet somehow not fully under the Curse. Which was cruel, actually, for one so unhinged as Jefferson. He was Cassandra of Greek mythology, doomed to know the truth and to never be believed.

_Who_ are _you_ , asked the gigantic, rude and pedantic caterpillar of Wonderland, and Jefferson had torn at his wild hair, hand to his own throat and screamed _I don’t fucking know_! Then he’d absconded with the fucker’s hookah and remained baked for days. Until they’d nabbed him… again.

After reuniting in un-Cursed Storybrooke, they’d hung out. They were both surly and resentful of everyone and everything. They were both obsessive and stuck within tiny details. They watched Harold and Maude, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, borderline triggering for Jefferson, and Fight Club. Victor couldn’t stop quoting lines inspired by the medical articles in Fight Club. He told everyone, “I am Jack’s raging bile duct.” “I am Jack’s smirking revenge.” He told a patient, noncompliant with anything remotely heart-healthy, “I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.”

They listened to a lot of Victor’s music, and wallowed. They listened to Dead Can Dance, XTC, Tricky and Portishead. They were _morose_.

They hid out, more at home in Victor’s flat than Jefferson’s mansion, and drank. They made a cave, their bone caves becoming a bit funky within it. The shades were drawn, the music played, the T.V. flickered and they stayed in a bleary, regressed state.

It was during this time that Jefferson first kissed him. Victor thought… What? It was weird. Nothing in him had leapt to do the guy-thing… he hadn’t wanted to shove Jefferson off, to take offense and assert his own stalwart heterosexuality.

Instead, he’d more or less disassociated for a moment. He’d stepped outside of himself. He was aware of thinking too damn much. He’d watched himself being kissed by the guy he’d once thought of as the Jumper, the Hatter, and now only thought of as Jefferson. As he watched, he felt it happen… the fog of whiskey breath at his face, the softness of Jefferson’s full lips, the slippery, nerve-alerting silkiness of his tongue.

He saw himself, eyes almost closed, letting it unfold. He saw his hand rise to Jefferson’s head, felt his hand move into Jefferson’s hair. He’d pulled Jefferson closer.

Oddly, Tank Girl was on the television. There was Bjork’s Army of Me _. And if you complain once more, you’ll meet an army of me_. The whole town could be admonishing them.

It felt like he was taking notes. He was almost missing what was actually happening, his mind on the loose, outside of himself, observing and analyzing. He was storing up information for later, a catalogue of things to pick apart and examine… possibly things to reexamine and jerk off to. In the moment, it was hard to say what he was doing.

_Do I like this_ , he wondered?

His dick informed him that he did. His mind intruded, but… for real? Or does this just feel good? His mind reminded him that dicks were notoriously ignorant.

No definite answers sprang forth, and then Jefferson’s breath was hot at his ear, his fingers urgent at Victor’s belt buckle. Despite a great deal of warmth cocooning him, Victor felt shivers run down his back. Jefferson had whispered, “I want to suck your cock.”

_Whoosh_. Victor was brought abruptly back into the moment, all of his straying thoughts slammed back into his body. His blood made an attention-getting, almost painful throb at his cock. Within his body, his pelvic floor lit up like the shit-storm of synapses firing off in his head. Though the activity seemed genital-centric, he felt it in his chest. He kind of wanted to cry.

Why, then, did he begin to say _no_? His body’s message was completely contradicted by his words, which were, “No… no. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hands on Jefferson’s shoulders, holding him back. He’d tried to catch his breath, wondering if he was still scripted. Where were his words coming from? His refusal had the same sound as when he said, “I’m afraid you’re not responding to current treatment as we’d hoped.”

Jefferson had let himself be held at arm’s length, but his hand wormed into Victor’s jeans and found its target. He stroked, his fingers almost as whiskey-warm as his breath, and he and Victor had stared at one another, eyes locked.

After a moment, Jefferson said, _“I_ think it’s a good idea.”

Victor thought something like, _oh my god_. If he let this continue, what did it mean? Did it mean something? He felt like it did. He felt a little hysterical.

Jefferson bypassed the flimsy hold on his shoulders and moved close. He kissed Victor again, hand still stroking. Victor thought about it. He thought of how he’d noticed Jefferson when the Curse broke, so differently from their first introduction. For instance, he’d noticed the largeness of Jefferson’s eyes, how dark the blue. He’d noticed his _eyelashes_ , for crying out loud. He’d noticed his full and troubled mouth, and at least once, in passing, had touched a finger to the dimple in Jefferson’s chin. What was that?

He’d noticed his baby face, a juxtaposition to a lean body…. And he’d noticed Jefferson’s ass. He’d made himself un-notice that he’d noticed, but he’d noticed. A rounded bubble-butt in tight jeans… a happy bit of curve in an otherwise narrow silhouette. Grabbable.

So, he thought, there you go.

Jefferson’s mouth moved to his jaw, his neck. His fingers crept down, fondling at Victor’s balls. Victor felt himself begin to puddle. He slid low on the couch, legs sprawling. His breathing was heavy, his eyes didn’t want to open. At his ear once more, Jefferson breathed, “Can I? Victor?” For emphasis, his lips had nuzzled at Victor’s ear. His thumb slid over the head of Victor’s cock, slick with pre-come.

Victor was long past seduced. He’d begun to wonder exactly when the seduction had begun. He moaned, and whispered, “ _Yes_!”

Before he could let Jefferson out of the range of his face, he’d held Jefferson’s head. He brought him close, kissing in a way that was devouring. When he let go, Jefferson was hazy-eyed and panting, wet-lipped and flushed.

Jesus. So pretty.

Without hesitation, Jefferson moved to his knees, on the floor. He’d yanked Victor’s jeans down to his feet, then off. Cozying between Victor’s legs, he’d taken his cock into the hot and slippery wetness of his mouth.

In such moments, it was easy to overlook the aspect of mental illness.

 

 

It was present, even during sex. Hell, especially during sex. Jefferson tried to lose himself in it, to be out of his head and mired within the sensations of his body. He tried to lose himself in Victor, and Victor felt the power of it.

It didn’t take long for Victor to realize he was the beneficiary of run-away anxiety. Jefferson’s need to suck cock was akin to sucking one’s thumb. A rude and rudimentary equation, but true.

Victor could feel it… the anxiety, and when he was sought out as the antidote. It was a different feeling from when they made-out, when they got each other excited and then set about finding all the parts that felt good; an exercise in team work. It felt a little dark… it gave Victor power, and he felt unsettled about how good the power felt.

It made him feel guilty. Was he exploiting Jefferson?

He made the occasional effort to redirect, to steer Jefferson to – say – a calming cup of tea. Maybe a guided meditation. Something, anything that showed he cared, he was trying to help. He wasn’t simply happy to reap the benefit of all the shit that left Jefferson forlorn and manic.

But Jefferson only looked at him like he’d offered a Tic Tac in a time of crisis. For when you want freshness without calories. Why would Victor primly shield his dick from courtship and offer tea? Jefferson actually said things like that, his pretty eyes looking for answers, brow moody. As much as anything else, his speech, his determination was seductive to Victor. Jefferson’s eyes could be dark and guarded, angry, but even then there was a hurt, a vulnerability that came through. It was still there, a shadow, when Jefferson’s eyes were alight and happy. It fucked with Victor. It sought out his own pain and licked his wounds.

If he continued to deny Jefferson, (such a weird feeling; _nay, thou shan’t receive the glory of mine dick_ ), Jefferson became pouty. Sometimes a touch violent, pitching himself at Victor like a child having a tantrum. He wrestled and grappled, and the end result was that Victor so turned on, he couldn’t begin to understand what was motivating him to withhold his cock.

It was one mind-fuck after another, all of it unsettling and irresistible. It felt so good to give in… to feel Jefferson’s body shift from tense assault to a hot, melting _willingness_ , to feel Jefferson’s mouth, open to his, kissing wetly and then moving along his jaw.

When Jefferson got what he wanted, (he always got what he wanted), Victor began to unravel. The surge of power hit him, a sexual power of which he’d been ignorant before Jefferson.

Only once, Jefferson had placed Victor’s hand on his head, on his face. After that, vision gone a bit dark, Victor’s instinct took over and he did it himself. He fisted his hands in Jefferson’s hair, thrusting into his mouth. His teeth clenched and his eyes felt pained as he watched… it was too much. Jefferson was too pretty, too pleasing. He gazed up at Victor, cheeks flushed and eyes hungry.

Victor caressed Jefferson’s face and over his throat. Even after he came, his voice often a hoarse and startling sound in his ears, Jefferson still sucked. He cuddled, his warm body curled or entangled to Victor and gave soft suckle to Victor’s cock.

He liked getting head – well, of course he did – but when he was wound-up, anxious, he most often didn’t want it. It seemed a distraction from the tactile comfort he sought. He remained focused on Victor, and Victor felt as though a sort of humming, a vibration filled Jefferson’s body, his bone cave. Jefferson used him to block out the world, to block out his own thoughts, and Victor was okay with being used.

If he got hard again, Jefferson wanted to be fucked… for as long and hard as Victor could maintain. It was yet more power, more of the scarily addictive darkness as Victor pulled Jefferson back by the hair, or pinned his wrists over his head.

At Jefferson’s ear, he sometimes asked, “Is this what you need?”

Jefferson’s legs wrapped around him. He pulled Victor in, head thrown back, eyes closed. He whispered, “ _Yes_! _Yes_!” It made a growl in Victor’s chest, a hot surge in his blood.

He’d never ben possessive, but now it was ridiculous. Jefferson was _his_ ; he would fight anyone on this point. Let Storybrooke talk, let the hospital staff look at him in amusement or derision. Whale had been a lie; who was to say who Victor Frankenstein was? Even he didn’t know.

 

 

Jefferson woke from his stuporous sleep, interrupting Victor’s study. His first words were, “I’m sorry.” It came out as a croak, and put a vice-like squeeze on Victor’s heart.

“Don’t be.” Victor said.

“I’m such a fuck-up.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m weak.”

Victor sighed, stretching his body out beside Jefferson. “Shut up.” He murmured. “You’re not weak. You’ve been through more shit… I can’t, even. And you’re _here_ , man. Here for Grace, here for me. So, you get ambushed by your brain every so often. So what? There’s no one in this town who’s in their right mind.”

He snorted. He hadn’t realized that was true until he said it. Even Mary Margaret and David Nolan were a truly be-fucked mess. They were just better at denial than most.

“You think Gold’s a picture of mental health?” Victor asked.

Jefferson gave a soft smile. “Don’t pick on Rumple.” He said. He rolled to his side and cuddled to Victor.

“Yeah. But, I mean. And Regina? Does she seem wholly integrated and well balanced?”

“Well, she’s such a good dresser. She’s highly functioning.”

“She has a chamber o’hearts.”

“I know, Victor. I got one of them for you, back when you were playing with dead people.”

“Well, there you go, brother. I’m not exactly a poster child for mental health, either. And yet, just this morning, they let me remove a gall bladder from a human being.”

“Foolish, deluded Storybrooke citizens.”

“Right?”

Victor hugged himself to Jefferson, soothing his hand in circles on Jefferson’s back. The mania had drained from Jefferson and was slowly draining from Victor’s body. The bone cave, keeper of all things they each wished to let go of. The cave held on, muscle and bone, synapses and chemicals remembering, even when the brain tried to block it out.

Just as he’d become obsessed with neurological impulse and electricity, lightning, Victor now knew he had to learn how to bring light into the cave.

 

 THE END

 

 

 


End file.
